Paradise
is an idealized place in which existence is positive,
harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a
counter-image of the miseries of human civilization,
and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity,
and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment,
but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and
idleness. It is often used in the same context
as that of utopia.

Paradisaical notions are cross-cultural, often
laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical
or eschatological or both. In eschatological contexts,
paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous
dead. In Christian and Islamic understanding heaven
is a paradisaical relief, evident for example
in the Gospel of Luke when Jesus tells a penitent
criminal crucified alongside him that they will
be together in paradise that day. In Native
American beliefs, the other-world ia an eternal
hunting ground. In old Egyptian
beliefs, the other-world is Aaru, the reed-fields
of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the
dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was
the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical
Greeks,
the Elysian fields was a paradisaical land of
plenty where the heroic and righteous dead hoped
to spend eternity. The Vedic Indians held that
the physical body was destroyed by fire but recreated
and reunited in the Third Heaven in a state of
bliss. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the "Best
Existence" and the "House of Song"
are places of the righteous dead. On the other
hand, in cosmological contexts 'paradise' describes
the world before it was tainted by evil. So for
example, the Abrahamic faiths associate paradise
with the Garden of Eden, that is, the perfect
state of the world prior to the fall from grace.

The concept is a topos' in art and literature,
particularly of the pre-Enlightenment era, a well-known
representative of which is John Milton's Paradise
Lost. A paradise should not be confused with a
utopia, which is an alternate society. (Credit:
Wikipedia)